Lauren Long / The Post-StandardLockheed Martin's plant at Electronics Park in Salina was awarded a $36 million contract to continue work on a ground-based Air Force radar system to track planes and missiles.

Washington -- Two Central New York companies have won big defense contracts worth more than $60 million for work related to developing radar systems for the Air Force and Army.

The Department of Defense awarded Lockheed Martin Corp.’s plant in Salina an Air Force contract worth about $36 million to continue developing the Three Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range Radar program, or 3DELRR.

Lockheed Martin is competing with two other companies to provide the ground-based, long-range radar of the future. The other competitors are Raytheon and Northrop Grumman.

Saab Sensis, based in DeWitt, is part of the Raytheon team competing for the long-term Air Force contract potentially worth more than $1 billion over decades.

When complete, the new radar system will replace one designed and first built in Syracuse in the 1980s by General Electric. The new system will be the principal Air Force long-range, ground-based sensor for detecting, identifying, tracking and reporting aircraft and missiles.

Lockheed Martin officials at Electronics Park in Salina said the new contract will help maintain employment at about 1,900 people, but will not result in any immediate new jobs. Terms of the new contract require work on this phase to be completed by Nov. 20, 2013.

Separately, SRC Inc. in Cicero won a $24.5 million contract from the Army to help expand the capabilities of its radar sensors.

SRC’s work on the Network Enhancing Sensing Construct will improve the sensors on the Army’s lightweight counter mortar radar and lightweight surveillance and target acquisition radar.

SRC officials declined to comment on the contract award, but said it would not result in the hiring of additional employees. The Department of Defense said SRC was selected over 34 other bids for the work, which is expected to be completed by Aug. 3, 2015.

It was the second big federal contract awarded to SRC this month. The company earlier won a U.S. Department of Homeland Security contract worth up to $100 million. SRC will build a new type of radar for Homeland Security that is capable of detecting low-flying planes that are sometimes used to smuggle drugs across the border.

The Homeland Security contract means that SRCTec, a unit of SRC Inc., could add hundreds of high-tech jobs over the next decade, according to U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

SRC Inc., a not-for-profit research and development company, and SRCTec (its for-profit manufacturing unit) employ about 1,100 people nationwide, including about 850 in Central New York.